


So Eden Sank To Grief

by MyBloodyUnicorn



Series: Nothing Gold Can Stay [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Femslash, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyBloodyUnicorn/pseuds/MyBloodyUnicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Daphne discovered what happened to her husband.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She pours liquor over the remaining ice cubes and hands the glass back to you, then takes a belt straight from the bottle, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

“So... questions?” The sneer on her red lipsticked mouth is infuriating. You want to slap her, tear at her hair, claw her face.

Your husband is gone. If he was ever really yours to begin with.

It took weeks to find him. Weeks of not knowing if he was even alive. That man, the one Emmanuel left with that day, couldn’t even be bothered to call you back. You must have left a dozen messages for him, each one more desperate and frenzied than the last.  

Finally, it was the man’s brother who called you back. Sam, he said his name was. He told you where you could find Emmanuel—in a mental hospital three states away—and that he was sorry. He sounded sad. Genuinely sad. And that had frightened you more than anything he said.

You drove for 14 hours, stopping only for gas. When you burst in to the hospital, you demanded to see your husband immediately but the orderly at the desk shook his jowly bulldog head, insisting you’d have to come back tomorrow during visiting hours.

A woman approached the desk and laid a hand on your shoulder.

"Oh, I think we can make an exception just this once, don’t you, Mike?”

She laid a hand on your shoulder and winked at the orderly. Mike said nothing, his face pink.

You turned to look at her. She didn’t look much like a nurse. Not one you’d ever seen. The blue scrubs were right, but she was wearing too much jewelry and tough-looking black leather boots which in no way looked comfortable.

“ _Mrs._ Emmanuel, I presume?” She leered at you, arching an eyebrow.

“My name is Daphne,” you said.

Her dark eyes swept down the length of you and back up. She shrugged, apparently unimpressed. She nodded to indicate the long hallway behind her.

“This way, _Daphne_.”

After a maze of seemingly identical hallways, she stopped and opened a door.

“Wait here,” she said. She disappeared into the room and you could hear her speaking softly to someone inside but you heard no one answer. She stepped out again, carrying a metal chair which she set just outside the door with a clang.

“I’ll be out here when you’re done.” She sat down and turned her attention to a glossy tabloid.

In the room, there was a small light on next to the bed where Emmanuel sat. His white shirt seemed to reflect back the little light there was in the room, and it was as if he glowed. He sat in the hospital bed, hands folded in his lap like an obedient schoolboy. He looked so small.

As you approached him, his eyes flowed over you without any sign of recognition, just passed over your face and then over the room as if he had never seen either before. You sat next to him at the edge of his bed and laid your hand over his, waiting. You watched his eyes as they traveled from your hand, up your arm, and settled on your face. His face was placid, expressionless. He didn’t look away and smile shyly. His forehead didn’t crease with consternation or worry. He didn’t even regard you with that curious birdlike tilt of his head. Instead, you looked deep into his eyes, nearly indigo in the gloom. Nothing you recognized looked back out at you.

When you stepped out of the room, the nurse watched you stagger, swaying slightly, your hand gripping the doorway. She grabbed you by the upper arm and pulled you out of the rabbit warren of beige hallways, past the orderly, still at his desk, and out of the hospital, into the night air. She didn’t stop pulling until you were standing by a red compact car where she unlocked the passenger door and pushed you in.

As soon as you sat down, your body felt as though it was collapsing, constricting around you. Even the air felt sucked from your lungs and you covered your face with your hands. By the time the nurse dropped herself into the driver’s seat, your head was on your knees and you were weeping—enormous, ugly sobs that made your entire body convulse.

“Oh, _good_.” Her voice was oily with sarcasm as she started the car. “This is just going to be _such_ fun.”

By the time she brought you to her apartment, you were no longer crying but the dead, airless feeling inside you hadn’t left.  She sat you on the couch and went rummaging through the small kitchen behind you. While she was gone, it took a minute of looking around to realize why her place felt so odd: there was no _stuff_. No clutter, no decoration, nothing. If it weren’t for the couple of trashy magazines on the table, you would have thought no one lived here.

She returned with a glass filled with ice cubes and a vile-smelling amber liquor. When you tried to refuse, she thrust it into your hand again.

“Trust me,” she said, “you’ll need it.”

And then she poured out the whole story. You already knew about demons but there was so much more.

Angels. Heaven. Hell. Lucifer. Apocalypse. Souls. Leviathan.

_Castiel_.

When she finished, you wiped your eyes and sighed. Your head was swimming—whether from what she said or from the liquor you drained from the glass, you couldn't tell.

"Really, no questions? After all that?"

She's still sneering but the fight has gone out of you.

“He’s gone, isn’t he?” you whisper. You watch the ice melt in the glass she refilled. An unseen weight settles on to your body, pressing you down. “He’s _gone_.” Your voice cracks over the word.

“You want to hear _‘tis better to have loved and lost_ , blah blah blah?” she says.

You press the heels of your hands into your burning eyes, trying to will yourself to blot out everything that’s happened.

“Shit,” she sighs. “Look, I’m good at lots of things but _feelings_ are not one of them.” She takes the glass from your hand, sets it on the table next to her liquor bottle.

Then she puts an arm around you, pulling your head into the crook of her shoulder. You feel her cheek rest softly on top of your head. You’ve never been held so close by a woman before and it’s comforting, safe. She smooths your hair with her hand, lulling you. The smell of her—nicotine and burning leaves and leather—envelops you and your eyes close.

“Thank you,” you say quietly. You pull away from her embrace to look at her, coils of dark hair unraveling around her pale face.

“I’m so sorry,” you say. “I didn’t even ask your name.”

Her small hand, white and cool as marble, cups your chin.

“Meg,” she says.

She leans in and kisses you. The kiss is warm, even kind, and it clears the liquor from your head in an instant. She draws back and watches you, the smirk returning to her red mouth. Her dark eyes go wide and the delicate eyebrows lift with unspoken invitation. It takes a minute to comprehend what she’s proposing but once you understand, you are overwhelmed.

_You want it._

She’s offering you an escape, a way to help you, to bury your pain, to make you forget everything... and you _want_ it to happen. You want _her_. 

Her thumb erases a trace of lipstick from your mouth. You pull her hand from your face, holding her wrist tight.

“Thank you, Meg,” you say, and you cover her mouth with yours before she can reply.


	2. Chapter 2

When you wake, you don’t remember where you are but your body is warm and rested. You look around the room, trying to get some clue of your surroundings. There’s a lacy black bra on the floor. It’s not yours. Images from the last 24 hours tumble into your thoughts all at once and you struggle to sort them.

_Hospital. Driving. Emmanuel._

_No… not Emmanuel._

_Meg_.

You scramble up in the strange bed, pulling the sheets around your naked body.

_Meg. Oh._

Right. You said that a lot last night, didn’t you?

_The contrast of her long dark hair against the pale skin of your stomach._

_Her mouth. Your mouth. Everywhere._

_Everywhere._

You idly wonder if last night counts as losing your virginity again and you almost laugh out loud. Because if so, it was considerably more fun than Eric Denley in his mom’s minivan.

It’s so quiet in this apartment now; is she even still here? You strain to hear anything, until at last, there’s the rustle of pages being turned, coming from the next room. Your body floods with relief and… something else. _What if she wants to do it again?_ you think. _Wait... what if I want to do it again?_

“M-Meg?” You hear the padding of her small feet on the living room floor. She appears in the doorway, hair undone and falling over her shoulders. She’s holding the clothes you were wearing yesterday. Under her threadbare t-shirt, you can see the outline of her full breasts and you remember: _her skin is milky white with only a pale blue hint of the veins underneath, with rosy nipples that harden at your touch and under your tongue._

You can feel your face going pink but Meg either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. She sets your clothes down on a chair and sits on the bed next to you.

“Hi,” she says with a smirk.  She leans in and in an instant, you’re yielding under her mouth. Her tongue, flickering against yours, tastes of coffee, bitter and burnt. You feel your breath hitch in your throat as everything from last night rushes back. _Her hands on your head guide you down and you thrust your tongue into her and it’s sharp and salty, like the tang of sea air_.

You kiss her back with force and your hand slips out to cup her breast through the shirt. Your thumb sweeps over her nipple, hard as the pit of a cherry, and her laugh is deep and soft. She pulls away and smiles, brushing a strand of hair from your eyes.

“I think there’s still some coffee left,” she says. “Do you want it?”

Even the idea of coffee makes your stomach curdle. You shake your head with a grimace. Too much liquor last night.

Meg narrows her eyes, studying you for a moment. Then she nods almost imperceptibly, like she’s just remembered something.

“Well, today’s my day off, so let me know when you’re ready for me to take you back to your car,” Meg says. There’s an icy note in her voice.  

“Oh… yes, of course” you say. _Your car. Another 14-hour drive, back home. Home. Your house, empty again._ Your body goes cold. “I’ll just… get dressed and we can go.”

Her mouth is a hard line as she nods curtly. She closes the door behind her as she leaves the room. You’re unsure why Meg is angry and even less sure if you actually want to know. You scramble into your clothes as quickly as you can. Were you too eager?

You find a hair tie in the pocket of your jeans and use it to pull your hair out of the way. You pass a hand over your face, hoping to sweep away any last trace of sleep, then open the bedroom door slowly. Meg is sitting on the couch, lacing up her heavy boots.

“Are, um, are my shoes out here?” you ask. You cringe at the timidity in your voice. Meg reaches under the coffee table, grabs your flats, and with a flick of the wrist, sends them skittering across the wood floor to you. You step into the shoes and spend a minute looking at them, not knowing where else to look.

Finally, you draw a deep breath and ask, “Did I… do something?” You stop yourself before adding _because if I did, I’m sorry._

Meg stops tying her boots and her dark eyes sweep up the length of your body before meeting your face. Her thin eyebrows draw together.

“You really don’t know, do you?” she says.

You think about the last few hours, looking for any clue, but you come up empty. “No, I don’t.”

She scoffs. “Come on,” she says. She grabs her keys off a small table and opens the front door.

The drive back to the hospital seems longer than it did last night, an endless stretch of unfinished housing developments and strip malls. Meg pulls off the highway and turns down a long service road. The mental hospital rises over the crest of a hill and suddenly there’s a vise around your chest.

You force yourself not to think _he’s in there somewhere_ because he isn’t. Not any more. His body is still there. Still living, still breathing. The same body that shared your bed, the body you know every contour and sinew of, but not _him_. Whatever Emmanuel is—or was—is gone.

Meg turns the ignition off, puts her hands back on the wheel.

“Do you want to go in to say goodbye?” she asks.

You shake your head no, your eyes never leaving the building.

“Okay. Do you want _me_ to tell him you’re pregnant?” she asks. Her knuckles are white on the wheel.

You turn to look at her.

“Hi, I’m Meg. I’m… a nurse,” she says, arching an eyebrow. “I can tell.” Her mouth is smiling but her eyes are glittering with fury.

“That’s not… I _can’t_. I tried. For years. And _I can’t_.”

She snorts. “Really? You were fucking a guy with magical healing powers and what? You just thought _it wouldn’t affect you_?”

“I… no. _No_.” Your laugh is high-pitched and edging towards hysteria.

“I’m just saying, you probably want to get that taken care of before it’s too late,” Meg says. You fumble with the handle of the car door, frantic to escape. She seizes your arm. Her grip is like iron. “Listen to me, the other angels, they’re not like him, okay? They’re _dicks_. And your... _baby_ is an abomination to them. They’ll find you and they’ll kill you. Both of you.” She jabs a finger toward your still-flat belly to emphasize her point.

You wrench your arm free and fling the car door open at last.

When you jam your keys into the ignition and throw the car into gear, you instinctively check your rear-view mirror. As you peel out of the parking lot, the last thing you see is Meg, standing next to her car, watching you drive away.  


End file.
